Sunday, June 19, 2016

The realm of early Japanese computer gaming is not widely documented, especially on the English internet, but it's something that we at HG101 take huge interest in. So that's why it's worth checking out Cosmic Cavern 3671 (宇宙最大の地底最), which was recently posted on Steam Greenlight.

Cosmic Cavern 3671 is a remake of a 1980 computer game called Chitei Saidai no Sakusen (地底最大の作戦). Programmed in BASIC for the MZ-80, it was first printed in July 1980, and was written by Takaya Arita, currently a professor at Nagoya University. It's a digging game, that actually looks like Namco's Dig Dug, despite predating it by two years.

This remade version includes ports of the original BASIC versions (using monochrome ASCII-type graphics, of course, with different colors based on different monitor types), as well as a redone version with updated sprites and some changes that are said to make the game less frustrating. The redone visuals were created by Hiroshi Ono, the famous pixel artist who worked on numerous early Namco arcade titles, including Galaga, Mappy, Dig Dug, Pac Man, and many, many, many others. The new soundtrack was also provided by Yuzo Koshiro, famous for thirty years of fantastic video game music.

It's definitely an obscure title - the original game doesn't appear to be emulated anywhere - but it's great to see such a bit of history resurrected for the modern era. Go give it a vote, and check it out when it's released!

It will be cool if you guys cover more of this old japanese developers projects on the greenlight. That part of Steam it's so full os shit indie games at every second, that some good game projects may pass unnoticed. Even more when they are from "obscure" developers like this one.